Well, as a whole this second semester of college has been rough. I think there's been a pretty good balance of good and bad, but moreso on the bad side.

The outcome of everything is not all bad, however. I have a wonderful girlfriend, somewhat loving family, and a great group of friends.

On the girlfriend front, her name is Crystal, and she's 23. I really don't know how, but she puts up with me when I reach the point of doing odd things without being able to stop myself, such as just randomly saying something, making my limbs move, or just bursting out laughing. I don't know why I do said things, it just really happens. We've been together for a couple months now, and this week was her birthday week. She turned 23 on Monday, the 14th.

Before her birthday, however, I presented her with a strawberry iced angelfood cake and a bag of small gifts, and on Monday, well, we had our first real kiss on the lips. It was pretty short, but it happened. It took me the whole day at the zoo to bring up the courage to do it, because I was afraid of really blowing the moment. On the kiss, I actually asked her parents' permission because I felt I needed to, in order to show the respect that I have for her parents' feelings about our being together. Crystal has really strong ties with her parents and I was trying to make sure not to offend said ties.

I've been doing my best in order to be a good boyfriend, and I know I'm rough around the edges, probably moreso than I think, but she tolerates me. I can honestly say that I love her.

The reason I said somewhat loving on the family, well....My dad and I got into an argument. My mom had been working on getting the house to a presentable state, since she figured I may be inviting Crystal home some time. He popped off that I never did anything to help with the house in the first place, and neither did anyone in the house. He kept spouting random obscenities toward me, and when I finally turned around and looked at him, his look went from being high and mighty to horrified. I can't remember half of the things I said to him, and I really don't want to. He tried to guilt trip me by using his usual "Well, nobody loves me in this house," and "I could leave right now." What really shocked me was my mom. She came up, pushed me out of the way and got in his face and said "If you want to leave so D*** bad, go!" Noone said anything else after my mom had her say, and I went outside and tended to the animals.

Later that day, it was a Wednesday, we recieved a call that someone who helped raise me as a child and was a great friend to the family, essentially making her family to us, passed away from cancer. I made a promise to her, Patty Melton, that I wouldn't cry for her death. It was something she forced me to do, and I'm doing my best to make good on the promise. It's hard knowing that she won't get a chance to meet Crystal, because she wanted to meet my first girlfriend whenever I decided I was confident enough to go into a relationship.

Anyways, I have found that I have many good friends. I took a minute to step back and look at how many people I knew, how many I actually talked to, and how many I actually cared to talk to. I found that most of the people I knew, I talked to, and the same way on the people I talk to. I'm a very hard person to be around because I am very sarcastic and random at times, and I have certain problems which cause those tendancies to show more. I've always had pretty good control over what I do and say, but now the control is slipping and it seems like I'm showing my rear end more often. My sense of self is also slipping, meaning in that I'm losing sight of who I am. Everything I use to be has changed, and I am completely different from where I started in college.

In artistry news, I'm getting more of a want to draw again. My Life Drawing class is beginning to really bore me now, though, but I have found that picking one drawing and then working on filling it out has done more good for me than trying to do a bunch at once. My focus on my work is slipping, however, which is making it harder to put out complete works. I have a total of 20 WIPS on top of the 2 final art projects I have in the works. It saddens me that I haven't done anything to a level of completion since my Life drawing midterm, in which I HAD to complete.